


The Reluctant Hero

by skimmingthesurface



Series: The Reluctant Hero [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Potentially dangerous and scary situations in the future, pinescone, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-12 05:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15333006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skimmingthesurface/pseuds/skimmingthesurface
Summary: "After the first time, Wirt’s powers were extremely unpredictable. And for a boy that very much liked things to be both predictable and sensible, this couldn’t have been more upsetting. As his life rather instantaneously turned upside down, the last thing he needed to be worrying about was whether or not he was going to teleport while he was in the shower or create a force field in the middle of gym class.Once the initial concern mellowed out, Dipper eagerly dove into his comic books and collection of superhero movies for research material. After deducing that Wirt hadn’t been bitten by a genetically-enhanced spider or fell into a vat of radioactive waste, he concluded that he was one of two things. “An alien from another planet,” Dipper announced in his conspiracy voice as his gaze narrowed. “Or a mutant.”"AKA, Wirt is quite literally the reluctant hero in his very own superhero AU. He's been graced (or cursed) with superpowers and all the trouble that comes with them. Luckily, Dipper is there by his side helping him figure it all out. He may not be much of a superhero, but it's a work in progress.





	1. The First Time

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a little thought that popped into my head after listening to "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty (no idea why) and by the talk of an Incredibles AU on Arkaena's blog on Tumblr. It's not quite an Incredibles AU, but definitely inspired by it. Also, thanks to SylviaW1991/syl-writes-stuff on Tumblr for help with figuring out Dipper's role in all of this! I'm not sure how many chapters this is going to be, but we'll just see where it takes us! Enjoy!

The first time he used one of his powers, Wirt had just turned six.

His parents had been fighting. That wasn’t unusual, but it was his birthday and he’d wished on his candles for a day – just one day – where they wouldn’t fight. It was the only thing he’d wanted, though the X-Men action figure set that his best friend had picked out for him was almost just as good.

It certainly comforted him when neither of his parents couldn’t. He clutched the figure of Jean Grey in both hands, his favorite of the bunch. She was so nice in the first movie, he’d been sad when she turned bad in the third. Good things shouldn’t be able to turn bad, he thought to himself as the arguing outside his bedroom door became shouting. Good things should always stay good.

“I’ve had enough of this! I’ve had enough of _you_!”

“Why are we even trying anymore?”

Tears spilled over his cheeks as his chin quivered. Jean Grey fell to the floor as he clapped both hands over his ears to try and muffle the sound. His mother’s fierce snarls and his father’s angry hisses seeped in through the cracks in his bedroom door and swirled around his room like a storm. Their fighting hung over him like the darkest rain cloud, thunderous and with a chance of lightning just waiting inside to strike him. A whimper escaped as he squeezed his eyes shut when something was thrown and shattered against the wall.

“Why don’t you just _go_? Go! Get out of here!”

Wirt hiccuped and pressed his hands into his head harder, hard enough to hear and feel his heartbeat through his palms. _Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump-ba-bump. Get out. Get out. Get out get out._ He didn’t want to be here. 

He wanted Dipper.

His stomach spun like he’d just stepped onto one of the whirly rides at the fair. Like it weighed nothing and could fly right up and out of him if he wasn’t careful. He opened his eyes, but everything blurred together through his tears. Something fell to the ground with a dull smack and his vision cleared enough for him to realize that the floor he was looking at wasn’t his. A gasp caught his attention and Wirt’s gaze lifted to meet the wide-eyed stupor of his best friend.

He was in Dipper’s room. Not a second ago he’d been in his own, but now he stood right at the foot of his best friend’s bed, blinking tearfully at him. Sprawled atop his covers, Dipper could only stare, his mouth hanging open for a minute or two before he collected himself. He shook his head, brown curls bouncing as he sat up on his knees, the book he’d been reading forgotten on the ground.

“Wirt?”

His voice was soft, too soft for Dipper, and the sound of it only inspired a new flood of tears. Wirt hiccuped again as a strangled sob was wrenched from his chest. Dipper scrambled off his bed, his questions tucked away in favor of rushing to comfort the boy who’d appeared in his room like a light when its switch was flicked.

He didn’t make it far, immediately smacking into a bubble that materialized around his friend. Dipper fell back onto his bottom with a grunt, but his irritation was short-lived as he took a good look at what he’d run into. It rippled faintly with an iridescent sheen, this bubble that just barely shrouded his friend. Dipper pushed himself up and carefully approached it. Very gingerly, he pressed his palms against the bubble. It was firm, but it didn’t push him away. It was like there was a wall between the two of them that he could see right through.

“Wirt,” he tried again. “What’s going on?”

“I- I don’t-” Wirt’s breath hitched as he tried to get control, but the feeling of being completely surrounded by this strange bubble only made his heart twist tightly. He could feel the cake and ice cream from his party gurgle in his stomach, the ache only inspiring a new wave of tears. “I don’t know!”

The bubble started to expand. Dipper gasped as it forced him to take a few steps back. He flinched and scuttled away from it as his heart pounded, but the distorted, warbling cries from his best friend forced him to suck in a deep breath. Chest puffed out, Dipper stepped up to it once more and pushed on it with both hands, forcing all his strength into it.

“Let him go!” he ordered with a firm shove, his socked feet slipping on the carpet. “Give me back my friend!”

Wirt watched him, his heart swelling as the urge to cling to him welled up inside him. The bubble vanished and Dipper stumbled forward. Wirt rushed to catch him before he fell, but their heads conked together and they toppled over, tangled up in one another. They blinked at each other, then Dipper bundled Wirt up in his arms and drew him close. Wirt clung back just as tightly with a whimper, grabbing fistfuls of his best friend’s shirt. Dipper rubbed his back like a parent would, and could feel his shudders threatening to shake him apart.

“It’s okay, Wirt. I’ve got you now. It’s gonna be okay.”

Wirt nodded as he burrowed against him, inhaling the familiar smell of the Pines’ family laundry detergent and the very berry shampoo that Dipper’s twin sister insisted they both use. It reminded him of strawberries, like the filling in his birthday cake and like the spinning ride at the fair.

His stomach was still queasy, but Dipper’s presence soothed it and the storm his parents’ fighting had inspired. He could always count on his best friend to chase the clouds away and bring out the sun. Even when he unexpectedly appeared in his bedroom in only his pajamas and socks.

When Wirt looked back on it, the first time he used his powers hadn’t been so bad despite the tears and unfulfilled wishes, his parents’ tumultuous divorce imminent. It had brought him to Dipper, after all. He didn’t have to be alone.


	2. Unpredictable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wirt still has superpowers and he’s not happy about it.

After the first time, Wirt’s powers were extremely unpredictable. And for a boy that very much liked things to be both predictable and sensible, this couldn’t have been more upsetting. As his life rather instantaneously turned upside down, the last thing he needed to be worrying about was whether or not he was going to teleport while he was in the shower or create a force field in the middle of gym class. He tried to squish it all down, but it was like an inflated beach ball. No matter how far under the water he pushed it, it always popped right back up to the surface.

Once the initial concern mellowed out, Dipper eagerly dove into his comic books and collection of superhero movies for research material. After deducing that Wirt hadn’t been bitten by a genetically-enhanced spider or fell into a vat of radioactive waste, he concluded that he was one of two things. “An alien from another planet,” Dipper announced in his conspiracy voice as his gaze narrowed. “Or a mutant.”

Nine-year-old Wirt made a face at him. “I don’t want to be a mutant,” he complained. “That’s like… a less-mean way to call me a freak.”

“No way, you’re like a cool mutant. Like the X-Men.” Dipper held up one of the comics, smiling at him earnestly. “You have a mutant gene that gives you superpowers! That doesn’t make you a freak, that makes you awesome!”

Wirt pouted. “Pretty sure it makes me a freak.”

Dipper huffed, tossing the comic book aside to join the countless others that had taken over his bedroom floor, along with the half-finished unicorn and fairy coloring books that delighted the twin who happened to share his bedroom. Though there was always a risk they’d be interrupted by Mabel, they’d taken to spending more time at the Pines’ residence as of late since Wirt’s home was currently overrun with baby toys and the presence of an unwanted step father. Luckily, Mabel was at a friend’s house for a pre-dance recital sleepover, allowing the two of them to do more digging into the phenomena surrounding Wirt and his powers.

In his notebook labeled: _TOP SECRET, DO NOT TOUCH MABEL OR YOU’LL BE CURSED_ , Dipper had started a list on the first page. Teleportation, force fields, and invisibility had been scribbled under the heading “Wirt’s Powers.” That last one had been discovered in second grade, right before Wirt was supposed to go on stage in the final round for their class’s spelling bee. In the midst of a panic attack Dipper had been trying to calm him down from, Wirt had vanished. At first Dipper thought he’d teleported himself away, but his clothes were still there and he could still hear his frantic breathing and nervous muttering. Thinking quickly, Dipper had shoved him into the prop closet behind the stage of their auditorium, then told their teacher Wirt had thrown up and went to the nurse.

It worked out in the end. Wirt actually did make himself sick and had to go to the nurse when he looked at his hands and couldn’t see himself. By the time Dipper threw the spelling bee so he could check on his friend, Wirt looked to be like his normal self, albeit a little greener. Still, it was yet another power to add to his growing list. Just another unpredictable blip in the life he desperately wanted to be normal.

Wirt tried to ignore it. He already didn’t have a normal home life, split between two households that wanted to forget the other existed at all, so the last thing he wanted was something else that wasn’t normal. Something that nobody around him seemed to have. Though maybe they did and they were just hiding it, too. They must have been much better at hiding than Wirt though. It seemed that the harder Wirt tried to ignore these budding powers, the more they seemed to kick him in the butt.

By some stroke of luck, Wirt had yet to have anyone else notice his disappearing acts or habit of bubbling himself, though he supposed that lucky charm was Dipper himself.

Without fail, Dipper was always there with some sort of plan to distract people. When his force field popped up in the middle of a little league game to keep a fly ball from coming anywhere near him in left field? Dipper was right beside him in center field to make it look like the ball bounced off his mitt instead of off an invisible bubble surrounding Wirt. When he disappeared in the middle of class after he got a question embarrassingly wrong so only his clothes were sitting at his desk? Dipper propped his own textbook up in front of Wirt’s face until he calmed down enough to reappear. When he teleported into the girl’s bathroom by mistake? Well, Dipper hadn’t been able to help much there, but he did run in as soon as he heard the girls screaming with a pretty good idea of what had happened and joined his best friend in his punishment for “going into the wrong bathroom by mistake.”

It was just as exhausting being the best friend of someone with superpowers as it was to be the person with the superpowers. But it was completely worth it.

“Only because you don’t have to live with it,” Wirt pointed out, his hair sticking up every which way as he dragged his fingers through it repeatedly, and a small force field flickered around him for the briefest of seconds. “I hate this! Nobody else has to deal with this! I never know when it’s gonna happen or for how long or-”

Dipper clapped both of his hands to Wirt’s cheeks and squeezed. “Breathe, Wirt,” he told him, his touch having an instant calming effect. “I know it’s scary that you don’t always know when it’s gonna happen, but lots of things in life are like that.”

Wirt exhaled shakily, though it came out more like a whistle with his cheeks squished between Dipper’s palms. “Like what?” he asked, lips moving like a fish’s.

“Like… sneezes!” Dipper lit up. “A completely normal and natural unpredictable bodily function. Or hiccups! You’re not scared of sneezes and hiccups are you?”

Wirt batted his hands away. “No, of course not. But everyone sneezes and hiccups. Not everyone turns invisible.”

“Yeah, but I thought your biggest problem was that it’s unpredictable,” Dipper pointed out.

“It is.”

“Okay, so… if we make the unpredictableness less scary, then that at least solves one problem. And maybe you won’t hate it so much.” Dipper’s grin grew as his friend thought it over. “You know I’m right.”

Wirt huffed, his pout still present. “It’s still not _normal_.”

“Neither is this.” Dipper lifted his bangs, showing off the birthmark on his forehead that not only inspired his nickname, but also endless amounts of teasing from their classmates. “But you always tell me I’m not a freak.”

“Because you’re not!” Wirt urged, scooting closer to Dipper. “But it’s normal to have birthmarks.”

“Not in the shape of the big dipper.” Dipper let his bangs fall, smiling a little as Wirt reached out to fix them so they laid perfectly. “Nobody’s normal. Not really. And if you’re not gonna be normal, it might as well be with something really cool like superpowers.”

Wirt pursed his lips together as he sat back, wringing his hands in his lap. “I don’t know…”

“Well, I do. I know _I’d_ want superpowers,” Dipper told him, scribbling down hiccups and sneezes into his notebook.

Right after they realized Wirt’s weren’t flukes, Dipper had tried to manifest his own. He believed they were destined to be a crime fighting duo. Best friends, partners, always there for each other. By the time they entered fourth grade and no powers had made themselves known, Dipper had reluctantly accepted that he didn’t have the mutant gene and wasn’t a descendant of an alien race. The only thing extraordinary about him was that he was somehow best friends with someone extraordinary.

Which, was actually a pretty amazing thing, he’d decided. He’d also vowed that he was going to do everything in his power to help Wirt understand and control his own. Thus began the chronicles of Dipper’s _TOP SECRET, DO NOT TOUCH MABEL OR YOU’LL BE CURSED_ notebook.

Wirt laid his hand over Dipper’s knee. “I’d give them to you if I could,” he told him softly. “You’d be so much better at this.”

“You don’t know that.” Dipper stopped jotting down his notes so he could hold Wirt’s hand. “I don’t always like when things don’t go according to plan.”

“Yeah, but you always like to play the hero,” Wirt sighed, glancing down at their hands. “You’re so much braver than me. And smarter. And you have way more comic books than I do.”

Dipper glanced around at the dozens of comics surrounding them. “I’m just committed to my research.” He shrugged, then squeezed Wirt’s hand. “But I still think you’re pretty great. You’re definitely hero material, Wirt. You just need a little help. But that’s why you’ve got me. I’ll be the Commissioner Gordon to your Batman, even if I think he’s a little lame.”

“I like Commissioner Gordon.” Wirt’s lips quirked up.

Dipper grinned. “I know. That’s why I’m willing to be him. Or like Wade from Kim Possible.” His eyes lit up. “I can make all your techno gadgets!”

Wirt laughed as Dipper only seemed to grow more inspired. “I’d rather you be like Ron. My best friend who’s always with me.”

Dipper shoved him gently. “That’s insulting, Ron’s a loser.”

“I like Ron!”

“That’s because you have a soft spot for the weirdest characters.” Dipper rolled his eyes, but it was all in fondness. “That’s what makes you a good superhero. You like everybody.”

Wirt’s smile softened. “I don’t like Jason Funderberker.”

“Which I _still_ don’t understand.” Dipper flopped onto his back dramatically. “What did he even do to you?”

“Mm-mm-mm. He’s just… he’s really cool and everybody likes him.”

Dipper stared at him with all the blandness a nine-year-old could muster. “You and I need to seriously reevaluate what your definition of cool is,” he decided, then tapped his notebook. “After we figure out how to control your powers better. I mean, if you can stop a sneeze and get rid of your own hiccups, you should be able to apply the same level of control to your powers.”

“We’re still going with the sneeze and hiccup analogy?” Wirt asked, lying down beside him as Dipper rolled onto his belly.

“It’s the perfect analogy, of course we are.” Dipper quickly scrawled some notes beneath both physiological responses. _Grapefruit_ and _plugging nose_ went under sneeze, while _holding breath_ and _drinking water upside down_ went under hiccups. “You always feel a spinny feeling in your stomach, right? Well, next time you start to feel it, say grapefruit or plug your nose. Treat it like a sneeze. We’ll find something that stops your powers the way you can stop a sneeze. And if that doesn’t work, then we’ll try stopping it by having you hold your breath. I mean, there’s gotta be something you can do to keep it from happening. The X-Men don’t have these kinds of problems, after all.”

“Cyclops has to literally wear special glasses because every time he opens his eyes, he shoots lasers out of them,” Wirt pointed out.

Dipper rubbed his back. “Good thing you don’t shoot lasers out of your eyes, then.”

“ _Dipper_!”

“What? It is a good thing! I like your eyes, I’d be sad if I couldn’t see them ever again.”

Wirt couldn’t help but giggle, pressing close to his best friend as Dipper’s arm settled around him like a grounding weight. He leaned into him and laid his head against his shoulder while Dipper went back to jotting down more possibilities to control each of his powers. Though he didn’t say anything, Wirt wondered if there was something to this theory after all. His powers never seemed to act up when he was touching Dipper. Maybe he was his something.


	3. Limits and Potential

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper and Wirt are twelve and have too much time on their hands.

“Are you ready?”

“No.” Precariously perched on the seat of Dipper’s bike, Wirt pressed his chest flush against his back, his stomach twisting unpleasantly as his arms tightened around his waist.

“I’m gonna go,” Dipper warned him, his foot lifting to rest on the pedal of his bike.

“No,” Wirt repeated.

“On three.” Dipper flashed him a grin over his shoulder. “One…” His eyes switched to the road stretching ahead of them. “Two.”

“Oh my gosh.” Wirt squeezed him tighter.

“Three!”

Wirt’s heart leapt into his throat as Dipper kicked off and pedaled up to where the hill at the end of their street curved into its steep, downward slope. As close to Dipper as he could possibly get, Wirt clung to him for dear life as they picked up speed. Parked cars rushed by, blurring in Wirt’s vision as the bike went careening along the asphalt. He could feel the bike wobble a little as Dipper took his feet off the pedals for just a moment, the wheels spinning too fast for him to keep up.

They began to slow as they leveled out at the base of the hill, so Dipper went back to pumping his legs to pick the pace back up. “Come on, man!”

“This isn’t a good idea!” Wirt shrieked back.

“I know you can do it!”

“Well I don’t!”

Ever since the realization that Wirt could teleport whatever he was holding along with himself, Dipper’s brain had begun to piece together all of the potential his powers held. If he could teleport while in the middle of eating a sandwich and take that sandwich with him, what else could he bring with him? What were the limits?

That was what led them to this madness.

“Wirt, you’ve got to at least try.”

“Can’t we try while standing still?” Wirt clung tighter as they hit a bump in the pavement.

Dipper shook his head. “What superhero has the luxury of standing still while using their powers? There’s got to be times where you’re under at least a little bit of pressure. Where there’s stakes.”

He veered away from the middle of a street as a car turned onto it, passing them by with plenty of space. Still, Wirt whimpered and tried to hide his face against Dipper’s shoulder, their bike helmets clunking together. Dipper bit down on his lower lip, slowing for a minute as he considered it. Maybe the problem was there weren’t any stakes here. They were just riding a bike.

Trusting his best friend completely, Dipper took one hand off the handlebar and unclipped his helmet. He ignored Wirt’s incredulous, “What are you doing?” and chucked the helmet off somewhere to the side. “Stop!”

“Not until you teleport us!”

“Dipper, I’m serious!”

“So am I!”

Dipper’s heart twisted, his protective instinct flaring up at the sheer panic in Wirt’s voice. He didn’t like to push him out of his comfort zone, he liked being the one Wirt could turn to, his grounded support system when everything else felt like it was out of his control. He liked being the one to keep Wirt safe. The fact that someone who could literally vanish or create a force field to protect himself from any situation went to him first when he needed security both humbled him and stroked his ego, if that made any sense. It was something to treasure, of that he was certain.

But he really wanted to know more about Wirt’s powers. His best friend was really too tentative and complacent in ignoring their existence now that he was better at hiding them. There was still so much to discover, to know about this special part of him that no one else was privy to. Dipper wanted to know, and in this moment, that trumped all else.

He consoled himself by mentally affirming it was for Wirt’s own good. He was still looking out for him.

Another car headed in the opposite direction. Dipper squared his shoulders, palms sweating as he slowly glided into the middle of the road. Wirt noticed immediately. Dipper felt the way he tensed against his back, his protests falling silent.

The car had enough clearance, but only just. Dipper couldn’t bring himself to play chicken with something that could seriously kill them both, no matter how much faith he had in Wirt. It tempted fate a little too much.

Heart still hammering, he veered towards a parked car instead. Something stationary and less likely to kill them if they ran headlong into it. _Come on, Wirt._ He thought to himself. _I know you can do it._

Wirt didn’t hold that same certainty, not in the slightest. He paled as they got closer and closer, just seconds away from crashing into the parked car. He pried one arm away from Dipper, the strength he had to muster to move it as if it was steel soldered to his waist, and grabbed the handlebars. He wrenched them away from the car.

“You’re crazy!” he wheezed as they wobbled, Dipper fighting for complete control.

“Wirt, let go!”

“Not until you stop!”

“Seriously, you’re gonna-” All the breath rushed out of Dipper as they hit another bump in the road and swerved to regain their balance.

They headed right into the lamp post on the corner.

They both squeezed their eyes shut, bracing themselves for the collision when Wirt’s stomach dropped. For a second they were weightless. Then the bike’s tires bounced on the asphalt, Dipper’s feet battered by the spinning pedals when he lost his footing. They gasped and blinked. They were back in the middle of the road, no lamp post in sight.

But there was a car laying on their horn as they sped right along towards it. Dipper yelped and Wirt sucked in a deep breath as they and the bike teleported a few feet behind the car. They heard it screech to a stop, so Dipper turned sharply at the next corner. Hopefully the driver would chalk their disappearing act up to shock, though neither of them thought for too long on that.

With no other obstacles in their path, Dipper let out a loud _whoop_ as he pumped a fist in the air. “Yes!”

“Oh my gosh.” Wirt still couldn’t believe it, stunned as he stared behind them, then down at his own hands. “I did it?”

“You did it!”

They didn’t stop until they reached the park, both of them and the bike toppling onto the grass as they tried to catch their breath. Arms and legs splayed, they stared up at the clear summer sky, starry-eyed and elated as their adrenaline simmered under their skin. Dipper laughed, loud and free and contagious. Wirt’s own smile wrestled with his lips until he was laughing, too. Their hands reached for one another and their fingers laced together.

“You’re amazing!” Dipper gushed, squeezing firmly before he sat up. “I _knew_ you had it in you! Never doubted it for a second.”

“That makes one of us,” Wirt giggled, gazing up as Dipper hovered over him. “I thought we were gonna die.”

“Me too!”

They burst into a new fit of laughter, Dipper flopping across Wirt’s stomach while they both shook. As they calmed, Wirt stroked his fingers through Dipper’s hair. As stupid as it was for him to toss his helmet off while riding his bike, he was quietly grateful for the opportunity to see the brown curls his baseball hat normally hid. He had good reason for wearing it, and he did look really good in hats, but he still treasured every opportunity to touch or admire his hair. It was thick and soft, surprisingly never as sweaty as the rest of him.

Dipper closed his eyes and let him pet him for a few minutes, looking so content that Wirt actually wondered if he might’ve dozed off. “You teleported me and an entire bike with you,” he mused aloud.

“Yeah. I did.”

“Think of what you could do with that. You could, like, save people from burning buildings or an entire plane from crashing just by teleporting it and the passengers somewhere safe.”

Wirt’s brow furrowed as he considered both of those options. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” Dipper finally sat up, but Wirt found he missed the comfortable weight atop him, grounding him like always. “Teleportation, force fields, invisibility… you can do a lot of good with those.”

Pursing his lips, Wirt pushed himself up so he could sit and face Dipper, both of them cross-legged as the grass tickled their legs. “I just… it doesn’t feel like enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… I don’t know.” Wirt sought for a way to explain it, but he couldn’t find the words. “I don’t know what I mean.”

Dipper stared at him for a good minute, though Wirt could tell he didn’t actually see him. His mind raced behind his eyes, quick and calculating and intense. Wirt took advantage of his temporary blindness to admire them in the sun, not shaded by the brim of his baseball cap.

“No, I think I get it,” Dipper finally hummed, his gaze meeting Wirt’s and ignoring the blush that filled his friend’s cheeks. “I wonder if you have any other powers.”

The warmth faded as quickly as it flared up. “What?”

“Like teleportation, force fields, and invisibility are great and all, but you should probably have something more offensive in your arsenal for really effective crime fighting,” Dipper rationalized. “Like, defense is important, but you can’t win on that alone and right now that’s all you have.”

“What do you mean ‘right now?’ They’re all I have period. I think we would’ve noticed if I had some other secret powers by now.” Wirt shook his head. “Forget what I said. Three powers is more than enough.”

Dipper stood so he could pace, his mind still working in overdrive. “No, I really think you’re onto something. Your powers didn’t all manifest at the same time. Teleportation and force fields came first and it was nearly two years before you turned invisible for the first time. Maybe you do have other powers and they’re just dormant. Maybe you haven’t had an excuse to use them yet.” Dipper smacked his hand with his own fist, a determined expression blossoming on his face.

Wirt plucked a blade of grass from the ground and twirled it between his fingers. He could think of plenty of times where offensive powers would’ve come in handy, a few playground bullies springing to mind who forced Dipper into hiding his birthmark in the first place. He blinked as Dipper grabbed his wrist and tugged him to his feet, Wirt gasping as he stumbled after him.

“Where are we going?”

“Home. I want to put together a list of potential powers for you.” Dipper flashed him a bright smile. “Our experiments aren’t over yet!”

Wirt had a feeling he was going to regret ever steering them into this conversation.

The very next day, Dipper was at his house by eight in the morning and dragged him right out of bed and over to the Pines’ backyard, barely giving him time to change. Dipper sat Wirt down so he could stand before him with a clipboard in hand and a pen studiously tucked behind his ear. From his pocket, he withdrew a tightly folded paper square.

“So there are over six hundred possible powers or variations thereof, including subcategories of powers. I didn’t want to miss anything, so I counted anything that could possibly be considered an enhanced ability.” Dipper unfolded the paper and a list that reached the ground and then some was affixed to the clipboard.

“Oh boy…” Wirt exhaled, looking on as worry creased dark lines beneath his eyes.

“Don’t worry, we won’t be testing all of them. At least not today.” Dipper tapped his pen to the top of the list. “I’ve taken all the types of powers into consideration. Invisibility is considered a personal physical power, which are exactly what they sound like, and your force fields are in the energy manipulation category. Also exactly what it sounds like.” Dipper shrugged. “And teleportation is a travel power. You know, I think all the categories are pretty self-explanatory. All in all, their core identities are focused on what they do specifically and how you can manipulate them. So, I think that’s where we start. We follow the theme of your existing powers and see if anything else fits.”

“Okay…” Wirt glanced at the list with apprehension in his eyes. “And how are we going to do that?”

“Well, some of them will be pretty simple to test. Like super strength, super speed, growing additional limbs-”

“What?” Wirt squeaked, hugging himself as if an extra arm would burst out of him at the mere suggestion.

Dipper waved off his concern. “Relax, Wirt. I’m sure that’s not one of them, we’re just playing it safe by taking everything into account.” As he scanned his own list, a pensive frown settled between his brows and he chewed on his pen for a minute before scratching something out. “Except for limb regeneration. We won’t test that. Or self-detonation.”

“Thanks.” Wirt paled at the thought of just how those tests would have to be completed.

When Dipper looked over at him, his smile was sheepish with a hint of apology. “There’s still plenty of others we can try though.”

“Great.” With a sigh, Wirt got to his feet and dusted off his pants. “So where do we start?”

They started with super strength, as much as Wirt doubted his skinny arms could lift a twenty pound dumbbell let alone the Pines’ family station wagon. That and super speed were quickly crossed off the list when a jog around the block revealed the only thing Wirt could do speedily was guzzle a bottle of water. Wall climbing left him nothing but splinters from the fence he tried to stick to, and when he couldn’t heal the tiny scratches, self-healing powers were also crossed off, much to Dipper’s relief. As great as that power would be, he hadn’t wanted to hurt Wirt very much in order to test it. He was more than happy to be the one to hold Wirt’s hand as he picked the splinters from his fingers with his mom’s tweezers if it meant he didn’t have to bandage a burn or a bloody wound.

Wirt didn’t have claws like Wolverine and he couldn’t manipulate the weather like Storm either. He couldn’t shoot lasers out of his eyes and he couldn’t read minds. Though he came close with Dipper, but as well as he knew him, he couldn’t pin down his exact thoughts.

None of his senses were enhanced, Dipper’s sense of smell actually better than Wirt’s, though he did have 20/20 vision which he was pleased about. Wirt squeaked when Dipper tried to get him to try a sonic scream to shatter one of his mom’s wine glasses, then he flinched when Dipper threw a baseball at him to see if his reflexes were enhanced. Altogether he yielded some pretty unimpressive results.

By noon, they’d made it through a quarter of Dipper’s list and two thirds of Wirt’s patience. As Dipper crossed off the last of the elemental manipulation powers they’d tried, Wirt had to physically restrain himself from ripping the clipboard from his best friend’s hands and chucking it into Lake Merritt or off the Bay Bridge. His stomach growled and the back of his neck burned from where the summer sun beat down on it. He was tired and ready to collapse on the couch in Dipper’s family room and eat his weight in popsicles while he watched him play a video game.

An overwhelming wave of self-loathing crashed down on him, not for the first hating that he had these stupid powers to begin with. Sure, his powers were interesting and yeah, sometimes he did wonder where they came from and what his limits were, but most of the time he just wanted to pretend they weren’t there. He just wanted to enjoy his summer with his best friend, doing normal things like watching TV or going swimming or rollerblading or just… talking. About everything and nothing.

As much as he liked Dipper’s attention and being the center of it, it didn’t feel like he was actually what piqued his best friend’s interest. Sometimes it felt like Dipper was only interested in him for his powers. If he wasn’t so weird and unusual, would Dipper even want to be his friend still?

“Okay, so now that we can eliminate all of the elemental manipulation powers, we can move onto energy manipulation. They’re a little similar, but also different enough that we might be able to get something out of this,” Dipper babbled on, jotting down a note to himself in the third edition of his notebook on Wirt’s powers.

Wirt’s shoulders sagged as the thought of another category weighed him down. “Dipper, how much longer are we going to do this?”

“Not much longer. I know you’re hungry, so we’ll take a break soon,” he promised, then set his clipboard down so he could fetch the potted plant that had been subject to most of his earth elemental tests. “Try to absorb the energy from this plant.”

Wirt raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Touch the plant and see if you can drain its life energy and replenish your own. It might make you feel more awake?” Dipper shoved it into Wirt’s arms so he could take up the clipboard again. “Okay, go.”

He glanced down at the plant. “I… no. I don’t want to. I don’t want to take the plant’s energy.”

“You might not have this power, so it’s okay.” Dipper waved it off. “And if you do, well… then it was a noble sacrifice in the pursuit of knowledge.”

Wirt frowned and set the pot down at his feet. “No.”

Dipper cast him a long-suffering look. “Come on, man.”

“No, I don’t want to.” Wirt crossed his arms across his chest as he stared him down.

Dipper sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he huffed, and Wirt’s satisfaction only lasted for a flicker as Dipper’s gaze returned to his list. “Do you want to try flight and levitation next or interdimensional travel through wormholes?”

It happened in an instant. Wirt had barely narrowed his eyes before the clipboard shot out of Dipper’s hands and crashed into the side of the house. It cracked right down the middle upon impact and both halves fell to the ground with a clatter. Dipper stared at his empty hands, his pen slipping from his fingers and bouncing in the grass at his feet. Slowly, they both followed the trajectory of the clipboard with their eyes, wide-eyed and stunned. It had flown farther than Wirt could throw, and he and Dipper weren’t standing close enough where he could’ve easily snatched the clipboard from him, as much as he’d wanted to.

He’d made the clipboard fly out of Dipper’s hands and break against the wall just by willing it. Their gazes met, still in shock for a few more seconds before they both shouted in unison. Elation shimmered across their faces as they grabbed at one another, bouncing on the balls of their feet as they continued to crow their giddy disbelief.

“You can move things with your mind!”

“Did you see that? I had no idea I could do that!”

“You can _move things_ with your _mind_!” Dipper threw his hands up in the air before wrapping them around Wirt, practically tackling him to the ground as he squeezed him.

Wirt hugged him back with a delighted laugh, his fatigue and frustration forgotten in light of this newest discovery. Dipper was the first to break away, darting over to grab his baseball.

“Make something else move!”

Lunch ended up being late after all, but Wirt didn’t mind so much when the focus was solely on his telekinesis. The rest of the tests were brushed aside for the day as well, the discovery of one new power enough to satiate Dipper’s hunger for knowledge.

“Sorry I broke your clipboard,” Wirt piped up later, sucking on a watermelon freeze pop as he pillowed his head on Dipper’s lap, sleepily watching him play one of the Resident Evil video games as a reward for all they’d accomplished that morning.

“You can break as many clipboards as you want if you do it with your mind,” Dipper told him with a laugh.

“Be careful, I just might take you up on that,” Wirt teased, squirming when Dipper pinched his side, settling when it turned into a gentle pat.

Yeah, as exciting as discovering a new power was, nothing beat the time they spent together just like this.


	4. The Phantom of the Grand Lake Convenience Store

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes with great power, comes great responsibility. Dipper and Wirt try to figure out what that looks like for the latter’s abilities. Part 4 of the superhero AU I just decided to write, apparently. AKA The Reluctant Hero, Chapter 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I grew up near the Oakland/Piedmont area, but I'm nowhere near an expert! Some things are really there, and some things have been embellished and made up because this is fiction. Just wanted to put that out there!

Crime in Piedmont had never really escalated beyond teenage dares to shoplift and the occasional property crime, though they were close enough to the more heavily populated areas that news of bigger and badder things were never far out of earshot. They were just nestled on the edge of Oakland, a few measly miles separating their quiet - _boring_ , according to Dipper - suburb from actual criminal activity. They’d talk of going over there, to scope out the scene and potentially find some actual bad guys to stop, but Wirt could never bring himself to ask and Dipper would never take him somewhere purposefully dangerous if he wasn’t one million percent on board.

Both boys were hesitant, Wirt of his own abilities and Dipper for his best friend’s safety. As much as he liked to think that he’d jump at the first opportunity to be the hero, to help people and use his powers for good, he wasn’t about to push that responsibility on Wirt. While there was a lot of good that could be done with superpowers, there was also a lot of risk. A huge amount of risk. Though it was a relief that most of Wirt’s powers would do a great deal to keep him safe, there was still that niggling fear that if something went wrong, Dipper would be powerless to get him out of trouble. Literally.

Wirt, on the other hand, doubted his ability to be a hero altogether. He was not hero material. He wasn’t strong or fearless, he didn’t have a boatload of confidence and he’d done nothing to earn these powers. They were just a part of him somehow, and he honestly wondered if he deserved them. He didn’t take initiative, he could barely make it through the lunch line at school without hesitating on whether or not he deserved the last chocolate chip muffin until the choice was either taken from him or Dipper managed to snatch it for him. Nothing about that screamed superhero or protector of the people.

He was only fifteen. Practically an adult, but could he really be trusted with the kind of responsibility to take care of a city when he didn’t even want to take care of his six-year-old half brother? Wirt didn’t think so.

At least until the night of the baseball game.

They’d been saving up their allowances and the money they got from odd jobs - Dipper attempting to mow the lawn for his dad and Wirt giving clarinet lessons to kids at the music shop downtown - and had finally earned enough to go to an Oakland A’s game, just the two of them. Though tickets weren’t that expensive - the team didn’t have the best reputation, but that only made the boys support them more in their time of need - they still needed money for food and transportation. BART tickets, unfortunately, weren’t cheap, though it wasn’t too bad for a round trip from MacArthur station to the Coliseum.

They picked a Friday evening game at the end of May, just as school was winding down for the summer, their junior year looming ahead of them like judgment day. It was a good way to kick off what would likely be one of the last few normal summers they’d have together. A date.

Not that either of them mentioned that to one another, or to anyone at all. Ever.

It would just be their first real outing on their own without parental supervision that wasn’t a bike ride to the park or a trip to the mall. The teens were finally being trusted to be mature enough to handle a trip on BART alone. At least, that was what almost happened.

The second that Mabel found out what they were doing, she immediately hopped onto the bandwagon with Candy and Grenda in tow, much to Dipper’s chagrin. “You don’t even like baseball, Mabel!”

“No, but I do like the baseball players! Am I right, ladies?” She grinned at her two cohorts as she purchased the tickets right next to Dipper and Wirt’s seats with two clicks of a mouse on Dipper’s own computer.

“Hubba hubba!” Grenda crowed, admiring a picture she’d just pulled up on her phone. “Pablo, give me all your sugar!”

Dipper caught a glimpse of the picture and glared at her. “Pablo Sandoval plays for the Giants. You guys don’t even know what team we’re going to see!”

“You mean we have more than one?” Mabel laughed, winking at Wirt while she continued to goad her brother. “Come on, bro-bro! It’ll be fun! I want to go somewhere by myself, too!”

“Going with us totally defeats the purpose of going somewhere by yourself,” he pointed out.

“Boop!” She poked him in the nose and was swatted away for her efforts.

“Stop it, Mabel,” Dipper huffed, backing away from her while pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is just supposed to be a me and Wirt thing. You’re just going to make it… uncomfortable.”

Mabel cocked out one hip. “How so?”

“By talking about the players as if they’re only eye candy.”

“They are eye candy, for Candy’s eyes,” Candy giggled as she and Grenda exchanged high-fives.

Dipper gestured to them as he frowned at Mabel. “See what I mean?”

“Oh please.” Mabel waved him off, then pointed at Wirt. “It’s not like _Wirt_ knows the first thing about baseball!”

Wirt pursed his lips, opening his mouth to defend himself, but Dipper beat him to it. “He knows enough.”

“Yeah, like where to sit to get the best view of your-”

“Fast ball!” Wirt blurted out in horror, his cheeks burning as the urge to turn invisible or teleport right out of this situation welled up inside him. “I know where to sit to get the best view of- of his fast ball… because I know what a fast ball is, obviously,” he continued before she could cut in and ruin his pathetic attempt to salvage what little dignity he clung to. “And- and a curve ball and- and what a strike zone… is…”

“Isn’t that the name of the bowling place in Fremont?” Grenda inquired and all eyes went to her.

Dipper raised an eyebrow, more concerned by Grenda in the moment than the way Mabel wiggled her eyebrows at Wirt. “Yeah, I guess it is…” Dipper agreed slowly, flicking his gaze back to Mabel just as she finished making kissy faces at Wirt, the latter swatting her away with a dark flush tinting his cheeks. “What are you guys doing?”

“Nothing!” Wirt squeaked at the same time Mabel laughed, “Everything!” She sat down in Dipper’s desk chair and spun herself around in in a circle as she continued. “Anyway, it’s too late. We already bought the tickets next to you!”

“We’ll just sit somewhere else in an empty seat,” Dipper huffed, but there would be nothing stopping Mabel and her friends from just following them. “Fine! Whatever, Mabel, just at least try to let us enjoy the game, okay?”

It wasn’t in her, apparently. Right after booking her own tickets, Mabel had sent a text around to get other kids from their class to join them. Though a lot of people already had plans, two did show up at the MacArthur BART station to ride with them.

“Mabel, why did you invite Jason Funderberker?” Dipper hissed to her under his breath while the subject of their conversation and Sara said their hellos to Candy, Grenda, and Wirt.

“I invited a lot of people, Jason just happened to be one of them!” she pointed out with a grin, then rolled her eyes when her brother’s glare refused to simmer. “Oh, c’mon, Dipper. He’s harmless.”

“I know that.”

“So then what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that he bothers Wirt.”

“To be fair, a lot of things bother Wirt.” She shrugged, then grinned slyly. “Are you sure it’s not you who’s bothered? Mr. I-Want-Wirt’s-Attention-All-The-Time-On-Me-All-The-Time.”

Heat rose in Dipper’s cheeks as they puffed up indignantly. “Shut up. No, that’s- It doesn’t bother me.”

“Oh yeah? Because Wirt does pay a lot of attention to what Jason’s doing whenever he’s around,” she said with a sing-songy lilt to her voice. “Sure you’re not jealous?”

“I’m not talking about this right now,” he replied blandly. “Just know that you’re sitting between us and Funderberker, got it?”

“But Jason requested to sit next to Wirt specifically!”

“Mabel!”

Luckily they didn’t have to sit next to him, Mabel finally cutting them some slack and herding Candy and Grenda into the middle seats at the stadium, with Wirt and Dipper on one side and Sara and Jason Funderberker on the other. “I thought more people would come, honestly,” she ended up telling Dipper. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

Overall, it wasn’t too bad of a time, they even caught one of the fly balls. Well, Grenda caught it. Then instead of keeping it, she pulled out a black sharpie and wrote her own phone number on it, complete with heart doodles, then heaved it back down to the dugout with a powerful throw. The batter who’d hit it watched as it fell to his feet, and picked it up with an uncertain furrow to his brow.

“Hey, cutie! Call me sometime!” she hollered at him, and Dipper sank into his seat wishing that he could vanish just as easily as his best friend.

Especially when Candy whipped out her binoculars and trained them on the rear ends of each and every baseball player, rating them on a scale that combined circumference, shape, slope, and other weird factors that neither Dipper nor Wirt wanted to think about as Mabel argued with her.

“The butt alone doesn’t make it cute! Legs matter, Candy! Legs matter.”

Wirt squeezed Dipper’s hand, then in an instant they were behind one of the snack bars. The smell of popcorn, garlic, and ketchup was like a smack in the face as they were suddenly in the middle of it, but it was a welcome reprieve from the conversation they’d been forced to witness. There was only so much Wirt could handle, too.

Hands still firmly clasped together, Wirt offered him a smile. “Not sure if this would count as an abuse of my power or for the greater good.”

“You’re saving my sanity. Clearly it’s for the greater good,” Dipper laughed.

The A’s lost, but that wasn’t too much of a surprise. Thoroughly disappointed, Dipper picked at just where they went wrong with their pitching, as enthralling as it was amusing to listen to him go on about how important it was to have a good reliever to cushion the starting and closing pitchers. Though Dipper didn’t have to do much to command Wirt’s undivided attention, they both wondered later if he hadn’t been so distracted, could things have turned out differently?

They’d just crossed the bridge from the stadium to the BART station, ready for their return trip home. A shout cut through the crowd attempting to get to the trains, but they didn’t think anything of it at first. Things could get heated at a ball game, intoxication fueling the tempers of sore losers. But then someone screamed and the teens froze as a hooded man ran for the turnstiles.

Someone grabbed the man’s sleeve, shouts that the hooded figure had mugged him echoing off the subway tiles in the station. The culprit spun to face him, a silver glint shining in the harsh lighting before it plunged into the the victim’s abdomen. With a groan, the middle-aged man crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach as the knife was pulled back, then thrust in again before the attacker bolted once more. Wirt froze, then felt Dipper’s grip on his sleeve as he tugged him out of the way, both helpless to do anything except watch the hooded man try to escape.

Two A’s fans tackled the hooded man just after he leapt over the turnstile, pinning him to the ground while security ran onto the scene. Two average, everyday people. People just doing the right thing, no extraordinary abilities, no superpowers. Just good people.

But it hadn’t been enough. The suspect injured the two fans and got away. He got up fast enough to make it onto the next train. The first victim bled out on the floor of the BART station. He was dead before the paramedics got there.

They didn’t find out until later, after Mr. Pines had driven out to pick them up when the trains weren’t allowed to stop at the Oakland Coliseum until the next day. They found out on the radio broadcast Mr. Pines tuned into in order to find out more information, and also learned that the Oakland PD hadn’t been able to catch him at the next stop. The mugger - the murderer - had gotten away. Each teen piled into the SUV was silent the entire ride home, save for the softest of thank yous when everyone was dropped off one by one.

Wirt teleported to Dipper’s room the first chance he had, dropping to sit on the edge of his bed beside him, their thighs pressed together just to confirm someone was there. “I could’ve done something,” Wirt whispered, staring at the fibers of Dipper’s carpet. “I could’ve stopped him.”

Dipper looped his arm around Wirt’s waist, some kind of assurance on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t voice it just yet. Instead he shook his head and pulled Wirt closer. “It all happened so fast,” he murmured.

“I could’ve done _something_. I can make force fields, I can move things with my mind, I can-” Wirt’s rambling was cut short as his breath hitched. “Why, why is it me? Why did I have to be the one with these powers? I can’t use them. I don’t want to use them!”

“Wirt…”

“I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask for this responsibility, I- I don’t want any of it. I don’t want it, Dipper.” Wirt grabbed at Dipper’s shirt, clinging to it as their gazes met. “I can’t do this.”

Taking one of his hands in his own, Dipper gave it a squeeze as he twined their fingers together. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

“But I do!” Wirt’s lower lip trembled as he pressed his mouth into a firm little line. “I… I have to do this. Because I can’t just… go on pretending like me doing nothing is okay. It’s not okay. I… I can do things no one else that I know can. That’s how it all starts, isn’t it? In the comics?”

“Yeah, but this isn’t a comic, Wirt. It’s your life. No one’s going to force you to do this. No one even knows that you could’ve done something except you and me.”

“You don’t think what happened was my fault?” Wirt met his gaze, holding it even though for a moment he feared what he’d find in Dipper’s eyes.

Dipper swallowed, then shook his head. “No. You didn’t mug the guy, and you didn’t stab him. You didn’t commit the crime. Yeah, he got away, but…” He bit down on his lower lip. He could think of dozens of ways where he would’ve done something with any one of Wirt’s powers. “But we don’t even know what would’ve happened if you tried.”

“I wouldn’t feel like I let everyone down. That man’s family. You.” Wirt closed his eyes, shoulders sagging as he pulled away, arms wrapping around his own middle as if he could hold himself together. “I let you down.”

“No, you didn’t.” Dipper tugged on the bill of his cap as he blew out a steadying breath. “Wirt- yeah, in theory there were ways to stop him, but like I said, it all happened really fast. I can think of what I would’ve done in hindsight, but what it boils down to is that I don’t know what it’s actually like to have these powers. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to do something in that situation. I might’ve been just as stuck as you. So, look, I don’t blame you for what happened. The man’s family doesn’t either because they don’t know that anything could’ve turned out differently. No one blames you, Wirt. Except, well, yourself.”

Wirt sat with that for a second, replaying the attack in his head over and over again. The shout, the grab, the turn, the stab, the fall, the tackle, the escape. He could’ve teleported between the victim and the mugger, put up a force field before the knife came out. He could’ve grabbed the knife with his telekinesis. He could’ve just encased the mugger in a force field to keep him immobile.

“Why does it have to be me?” Wirt whispered as he hung his head, hiding his face in his hands.

Dipper rubbed his back. “Because you feel like this when someone you don’t even know was hurt. Because you’re a good person, Wirt. If anyone would do the right thing with these powers, it’d be you. But it’s also your choice. And I’ll be right here with you no matter what you decide.”

“Even if I decide to be a coward and hide for the rest of my life,” Wirt huffed, the lines around his eyes dark as he lifted his head.

“No matter what,” Dipper repeated, opening his arms to Wirt when his friend turned to embrace him. “You’ve always got me.”

The only time Wirt ever felt even remotely strong was when Dipper was beside him. If he always had him, no matter what, then maybe he could actually do this. Maybe he could do some good, where others couldn’t. Maybe he could make up for the man his inaction left for dead. He still wished it wasn’t up to him, that anyone else in the world could’ve been cursed with teleportation, force fields, invisibility, telekinesis, and intangibility. The world deserved someone stronger than him to help make it a better place.

But apparently it was stuck with him, just as he was stuck with these powers.

“You’ll really help me?” he mumbled into Dipper’s shoulder, receiving a squeeze back.

“Always.”

—

They waited until the next weekend before putting their plan into action.

Wirt hugged a pillow to his chest as he sat cross-legged atop Dipper’s bed, listening to the static that blared from Dipper’s smartphone. The police scanner app they’d found wasn’t perfect - “At least it was free,” Wirt had pointed out - but it worked in a pinch, even if Dipper could, in theory, make something better. He flinched as a rough, scratchy voice cut through the white noise, the words indecipherable for the most part.

Dipper frowned as it faded, teeth digging into the end of his pen as he stood poised before two of his white boards. One had a map of their side of the bay area pinned up on it, pieced together by taping zoomed in print outs of Google Maps that encompassed all of Oakland up until Fruitvale to the east and Berkeley to the north. A blue P magnet was stuck to their location, the Pines house over on Garden Way, and a collection of various other color-coded letters of the alphabet that they’d borrowed from Wirt’s house sat in buckets at Dipper’s feet. Sometimes it paid off to have a six-year-old living in the house. The other whiteboard was bare, waiting for the right string of codes to blurt out of the smartphone’s speakers so Dipper could write them down and decipher them.

It felt wrong, like an invasion of the police’s privacy, though Wirt supposed as concerned citizens they had a right to know what was going on in the surrounding area. A woman spoke next, speaking too fast and too garbled for them to make much out of anything she was saying aside from “5-80,” in reference to the freeway that separated Piedmont from Oakland. Dipper groaned and increased the volume, closing his eyes as he listened hard through the static.

“I don’t think this is going to work-”

“Shh.” Dipper held a finger to his lips as another officer spoke, this time an address clear and a “10-4” was uttered by the same woman. “I didn’t catch what they’re going there for.”

“What’s ‘10-4?’” Wirt asked.

“Just means they got the message.” Dipper shook his head, a small crease forming between his brows as he continued to concentrate.

With a sigh, Wirt quieted, warmth filling his cheeks as he took the opportunity to stare shamelessly. Dipper had a natural roundness to his face that softened the severity of his concentrated scowls. He was an expressive person, his emotions like a rainbow shining through his skin with a light that couldn’t be contained. As much as Dipper liked to think he was more reserved than his effervescent twin, they truly were cut from the same cloth. It was a little bit adorable, really.

Most things about Dipper were adorable though. From his laugh to his crooked smile, from his terrible habit of not washing his clothes to his stubborn… stubbornness. Though what captivated Wirt most had to be how earnest Dipper was, how much good there was in his heart.

He’d done all of this - printing out the map, creating a “superhero HQ” in his workspace, memorizing police codes on top of everything else he had crammed in his head - completely out of the goodness of his heart. He was here because he believed in the good that they could do. He believed in Wirt.

Wirt’s own heart stuttered a little out of rhythm and he hid his mouth against the pillow as his blush grew. He wanted to be held in his heart, as intensely as any of his other passions. He wanted his eyes on him, deep and dark and searching, as they cased his entire being in an attempt to make sense of him. His curious fingers brushing his skin to elicit a reaction, making careful note of each and every shudder and sigh. Butterflies took flight in his belly as he wondered if his lips would be soft, or dry and rough from the number of times his teeth dug in and dragged over the swell of his lower lip…

“Wirt, you’re invisible.”

Sucking in a quick breath, Wirt rematerialized back on Dipper’s bed, blinking in surprise when he realized Dipper’s eyes were still closed. “How’d you-?”

“We have a 211 on 555 Athens Ave. 10-23.”

“Yes!” Dipper lit up, his hand moving quickly as he scribbled down the codes and address, then quickly looked them up. “211, that’s a robbery. And 10-23 is stand by. They might request back-up.”

Wirt perked up, still holding the pillow as he stood and crossed the room to hover just behind Dipper. He watched him map out the robbery, then smacked a yellow R over Athens Ave. His brow furrowed as he mentally traced the route they’d have to take to get there.

“That seems kinda far,” he observed. “At least twenty minutes to bike there.”

“Yeah,” Dipper hummed, tapping his marker to his chin. “But you can teleport us.”

Wirt’s lips quirked up as he noticed the little blue mark he left on the curve of his jaw, so he nudged Dipper’s hip with his own and pointed to the mark when he had his attention, then realized what he said. “Wait, what? I’m teleporting us?”

Dipper rubbed at the ink with his thumb. “I mean, it’s the most obvious way for us to get somewhere, right?”

“Yeah, I guess…” Wirt rubbed at the back of his neck as his gaze wandered to the yellow R. “Just a robbery seems kinda… big for a first time thing. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Seems like it’d be right up your alley. You could just throw a force field around him and stop him in his tracks until the police get there.”

“What if he’s armed?”

Dipper chuckled and looked at Wirt the way everyone looked at his younger half-brother every time he opened his mouth. “If you stick him in a force field, he’s not going to get you.”

Wirt huffed, smacking Dipper with his pillow while the other boy laughed harder. “You’re not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be,” he assured him, then quieted as they listened to more back and forth along the radio.

It took a few minutes to get anything else, but both perked up as a 10-66 came through that was only ten minutes away. “A suspicious person?” Wirt decoded with Dipper’s handy cheat sheet while the other boy mapped it out. “What if he’s just some guy taking a walk to clear his thoughts in the middle of the night?”

“Wearing all black and a hood?” Dipper arched an eyebrow, only looking Wirt up and down when his friend gestured to himself with his own raised eyebrow. He, too, was dressed from head to toe in black. “Well, there’s a reason why you’re wearing a black hoodie. I doubt he’s doing it for the same reasons you are.”

“To hide his identity?”

Dipper rolled his eyes, tossing Wirt a black mask he’d fashioned for him out of one of Mabel’s cotton headbands. “And to help with the whole invisibility thing. You ready?”

Wirt fiddled with the mask. He’d tried it on before and looked impossibly stupid. Not because Dipper’s craftsmanship was lacking in any way, but because it was him wearing it. Him trying to be something more than he was.

“Yeah, I think so,” he exhaled, then tucked the mask into his pocket. “But I still think we should ride our bikes. Just in case. We wouldn’t want to get stranded if I get too tired to teleport us back.”

“True.” Dipper grabbed his backpack and phone, pocketing the latter with some earbuds in case they needed to listen to the police scanner app again while they were out. “I mean, I don’t think you’ll be doing that much teleporting out there, but you never know. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” He flashed him a reassuring smile that Wirt returned hesitantly. “Do you think you could at least teleport us to our bikes though? Beats having to sneak past mom, dad, and Mabel.”

“That I can manage.” It was Wirt’s turn to roll his eyes as he reached for Dipper’s hand, holding tight as he took them to the garage. Once they were holding onto their bikes, he teleported them out onto the street. “Okay. So the Grand Lake Theatre?”

“Yeah.” Dipper looked at his phone, a picture of the map from his room open on it. “Let’s go.”

The Grand Lake Theatre was a historic movie palace from the 1920s right by the freeway. Its 2,800 bulb sign lit up the north side of Oakland every Friday and Saturday night until the last show concluded. Though many things had changed over the course of time, that theatre still stood proudly, one of Wirt’s favorite places to go just for the architecture and vintage marquee lights alone.

However, as they rode up to it now, well after midnight and well after the theatre’s lights had dimmed, Wirt couldn’t help but shiver as its historic facade loomed ahead of them, backlit by the rush of the freeway. If there was a building he’d pin as haunted in all of the east bay, it would be the darkened Grand Lake Theatre. Or the California Hotel just a few miles west. Both cast eerie shadows when their warm lights were extinguished.

Dipper held up a hand as they coasted to a stop, one earbud in as he continued to listen to the police scanner. Wirt held his breath as he stilled beside Dipper, both of them hiding in the shadow of the movie palace. The white noise of cars driving by and sirens in the distance kept Wirt on edge as he glanced around them. No one else appeared to be around, but that didn’t mean they were alone.

“They’re not saying anything else about this guy. They’re talking about a group of teens disturbing a neighborhood now,” Dipper informed him, turning down the volume on his phone. “We’ll just have to figure out what this suspicious person is up to on our own.”

“Or maybe we should pick a different lead?” Wirt suggested weakly, but shook his head when Dipper glanced at him. “Nevermind. Dumb plan.”

“If you really don’t want to do this, we can go back,” Dipper told him.

“No. I’m fine. It’s fine. Let’s just… see what’s going on.”

Wirt rested his bike against the wall, tucking it behind the theatre’s dumpster to keep it out of sight and watched as Dipper followed suit. They walked around front until they were right under the darkened marquee. From the back, the theatre seemed quiet, tucked in with houses in a residential area, but around the front of the building a busy intersection put them right out in the open.

Aside from the occasional car that stopped at the light, no one seemed to be around. “Hey, what if people think we’re the suspicious ones?” Wirt inched closer to Dipper, watching as a car sped through a yellow light and onto the freeway.

“Then you teleport us the heck out of here,” Dipper replied, his voice wavering as he reached behind him to take Wirt’s hand. “Come on. If they’re looking to commit a crime, then they’re probably going to head to the shops. You know, something to rob or vandalize.”

“Right…”

They walked down Grand Avenue while they listened and looked for anything out of the ordinary. Staying close to the shadows and the sides of the buildings, their dark clothes aided in making them appear almost invisible. Well, as invisible as the average person without invisibility powers could get.

They froze as they heard the scuff of what sounded like a shoe against the pavement on the other side of the street. Holding their breath, they pressed against the glass window of the Thai food place they stood in front of. Across the street, they watched as someone dressed in all black staggered out from the alley between the dry cleaner’s and the convenience store, the only shop that was open.

“Maybe he- he just wants a pack of gum?” Wirt whispered, as close as he could get to Dipper without their bodies melding into one another.

“At one in the morning?” Dipper hissed back, but the same worry lined his face. Now that they were actually out here, trying to assess danger, what did they do? Did they stop this man prematurely? Before he could commit the crime? Or would they just be taking down an innocent without the full story? “I’ll keep my eyes on him, you just get ready in case you need to break out your powers.”

Dipper pulled out a pair of binoculars from his backpack, then tugged Wirt around the side of the restaurant so they could duck down out of sight. He peered through the binoculars, watching as the hooded figure walked right past the convenience store. Narrowing his gaze, Dipper witnessed him stumble, clearly drunk or on something, then come to a stop. Wirt’s grip on Dipper tightened as they both waited for him to move. Through the binoculars, Dipper caught slight movements from his head. He looked left, then right, then directly across the street at them.

Cursing under his breath, Dipper pushed Wirt further behind him. The man took a step forward, as if he was going to walk out into the middle of the street, but something stopped him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. At this distance, he couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was enough to distract the man from inspecting their dark corner any further.

“That was close,” Dipper muttered.

“What? What’s going on?” Wirt whispered, voice squeaking as his panic mounted.

“Someone called him, but he was looking our way. I don’t think he saw us though. I think he might be waiting for someone? Maybe someone’s coming to pick him up.” A dangerous idea flickered in Dipper’s mind, taking hold of it the same way all of his theories did. “Wirt, what if this guy’s affiliated with a gang or something?”

“This was a bad idea. We should go home. Yeah, I think that’s what we should do,” Wirt babbled as he tugged on Dipper’s dark blue hoodie.

He almost agreed, but then a dark van came up the street from beneath the freeway, its headlights off. It rolled up to the curb where the hooded figure stood, slowed for a moment, then turned at the next corner, right off the main road down an alley. It parked, and three other figures emerged.

This was not what they had in mind. “It’s about time!” the first figure hissed. “People were starting to get suspicious. I had to play the harmless but annoying drunk card to get the busybody in the apartment across the street to quit peering at me through the curtains!”

“It’s not our fault you jumped the gun. If you just stayed put like we told you to-”

“And that’s not more suspicious?”

“It’s not if you know how to hide!”

Dipper and Wirt exchanged glances as the quiet conversation carried over to them, but only just barely. A rubber mask was handed over to the first hooded figure, so Dipper peered through the binoculars again to get a good look at it. It was…

“A rubber horse head?” Dipper’s lips twisted into a confused frown. “Yeah, they’re all wearing rubber horse heads. Like the kind you get from party supply stores.”

Wirt shuddered. “I hate those heads. They’re creepy.”

“Shh. They’re getting something out of the back of the van.” But it was too dark to see what they were doing, the street lights from Grand Avenue not quite strong enough to reach the alley. “They’re definitely up to something, and it’s not good. Here.” Dipper handed Wirt the binoculars while he took out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”

Concerned with what the horse mask people might be doing if they weren’t watching them, Wirt took a glance through the binoculars. They closed the back door, as quietly as they could while ensuring it latched, then disappeared down the alley. There was a parking lot and several back doors to the different stores that faced Grand, but Wirt couldn’t be sure that was where they were headed. Some houses and apartment complexes were nestled behind the stores as well, and who was to say they wouldn’t try to break into any of those places either?

His stomach flip-flopped, then he found himself teleporting right into a trash can on that very street they’d walked down. His knees collided with the rim and it toppled over from his unexpected weight, hitting the ground with a loud _bang_ and the clatter of tin cans. Oh no.

“What was that?” Someone hissed, and Wirt turned invisible as he teleported a few feet away from the trash can.

He ducked behind a dumpster, trying to hide the clothed part of his body as best as he could while he watched two of the four horsemen approach the trash can. He heard something click, muffling a whine with the sleeve of his hoodie as one of them pulled something out and held it in front of them. They were armed. Oh no, of course they were armed. What did Dipper say about them being armed? Put them in a force field? But there were four of them.

“It was probably just a cat,” one of them muttered, and Wirt could see the outline of their horse head swivel in the darkness.

The one with the gun aimed it at the trash on the ground as he nudged some with his foot. “Pretty big cat.”

“If no one’s there, just come on already.”

“Not so sure about that.” The two closest to Wirt looked around again, their masks passing him by twice. “Okay, but let’s make it quick.”

“I was planning on taking a leisurely stroll through the candy aisle- no, of course we’re gonna make it quick!”

Their footsteps started once again, but Wirt didn’t move until they ducked behind the stores. Specifically the convenience store. Taking a shaky breath, Wirt glanced back at where he knew Dipper was still hiding. Or at least he hoped he was still hiding there. He was positive his best friend knew he’d teleported almost immediately, then probably put two and two together when the trash can fell over.

It would be easy to teleport back to him. Dipper had called the police after all and they were surely on their way thanks to the tip. This wasn’t their problem anymore, especially since they were only fifteen and these were seasoned criminals with guns. They’d done enough vigilante work for the night.

Except what if someone got hurt before the police got there? From what he could tell, these people were very much set on the shoot first and ask questions later ideology. What were they going to do to the convenience store clerk? Were they going to sneak in the back door and kill him quietly?

Wirt wavered on what to do, the memory of the man at the BART station flashing in his mind’s eye. The pained groan, the blood on the ground, hearing that he’d died on the radio…

He considered the mask in his pocket, but left it off as he stayed invisible. He set the binoculars down behind the dumpster and followed the masked men around the building. He stayed in the shadows, then ducked down behind a parked car to watch them from behind it. Armed with a crowbar and a lockpick, they fiddled with the padlock on the back door of the convenience store until it popped open. So they hadn’t needed the crowbar at all for the door, but they didn’t set it down. If anything, they lifted it up over their shoulder as if they planned to use it like a baseball bat.

They’d probably use it to knock the clerk out. Swallowing thickly, Wirt focused on the padlock and made it snap closed once again. When they tried to open the door, it didn’t budge.

“What the…?” The locksmith of the group frowned and tried to undo the padlock again.

“Did you accidentally relock it? Idiot.”

Wirt couldn’t let them get inside. With a gun and a crowbar and who knew what else, they were going to cause some serious damage to whoever was inside. As soon as the lock popped open, he closed it again. The locksmith saw it happen this time and released the lock as if it burned him, taking several steps away from the door.

“Butterfingers,” crowbar hissed and pried the lock off instead. It snapped and clattered on the cement. “The one thing you’re supposed to be able to do…”

When he opened the door, Wirt closed it in their faces so they all could see. “Is this place haunted?” one of them hissed.

Another cursed as they looked around for any sign of wires or magnets. “Don’t be stupid.”

“The door just closed by itself! And the lock?”

“Something’s not right here…” One of them looked around the parking lot, the horse head removed and his hood flipped up.

Crowbar handed his weapon off to locksmith, then rammed into the door with his shoulder. The door was smashed in, cans and boxes in falling over inside from the force. Wirt gasped, eyes wide as three of them stepped inside the store. Hopefully the store clerk chose to hide instead of investigate the storage room for the source of the sound, but he didn’t know if he could take any chances with that. Pulling his own hood up and over his head, he teleported directly in the path of the intruders.

One of them legitimately shrieked. Scrambling over one another to get away from the sudden, black hooded apparition, the horsemen collided and knocked themselves to the ground. The one who knocked down the door stayed standing, though Wirt could see his knees were weak as he took a few steps back.

“What the hell is going on in there?” The gunman stormed in, taking in the scene of half his team cowering on the ground, and then stranger that stood in their way. He aimed the gun at Wirt and his blood froze in his veins. “Get out of our way, don’t say a word, and maybe we won’t kill you.”

“It’s a- a- it’s a ghost!” One of the men on the ground cried out. “This place is haunted!”

“Shut up, Lloyd!” The one with the gun hissed. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“It just appeared out of nowhere,” The one with the crowbar and muscles whispered, still staring at him.

“Probably heard us trying to get in, huh?” Gunman took the safety off and aimed it at the center of Wirt’s hood. “You the one messing with us out there? Trying to scare us off? Well… who’s scared now?”

Wirt was. Wirt was absolutely the scared one now. This was so stupid. What had he been thinking? He couldn’t do this!

He quickly teleported to the farthest corner of the storage room, taking deep breaths as he listened to the four intruders shout with alarm once again. “It vanished! It was right there!” the one called Lloyd cried out. “I didn’t sign up for this. I’m out of here!”

Well… apparently that guy was the scared one, too. Wirt released a shaky sigh, then flinched when Crowbar chucked a crate in his direction. It crashed into the wall right beside him, so he teleported to the other side of the room before the next attack hit its intended target. He looked for the nearest thing he could use, and chose to mentally fling bags of chips at them. They swatted them away in a panic, the crinkling of the bags masking the sound of police sirens wailing only a few miles away.

The one with the gun growled as he stormed through the chip bags, his gaze honed in on the hooded figure. “Gotcha!” he snarled, snatching Wirt by his sweatshirt before he could escape.

He tore the hood from over Wirt’s head, gun lifted to press right between his eyes when he froze. There was nothing there. Nothing he could see. Just a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of black pants, no head or person attached. In actuality, Wirt held his breath as he stared down the barrel of the gun, mind screaming with white noise. When the man’s grip loosened, Wirt took a chance to teleport out of his grip.

“Oh my god,” the man wheezed, then turned on his heel to follow the other two out the door. “Let’s get out of here!”

They ran back into the parking lot and into the alley, but by then a police car had come to a stop right in their path. Their van was gone, and officers were out of the car commanding the criminals to stand down. They turned and made a break for it down to the other end of the alley, but they’d been cornered. The OPD had them blocked on that side, too.

Still invisible, Wirt poked his head out of the store to watch as the men were forced to their knees, hands behind their heads and horse masks removed. His heart was pounding, the white noise still blaring in his ears as he sagged against the wall. They got caught. He did it. He and Dipper actually did it.

Hand over his heart, Wirt choked on a wheeze of a laugh. He picked up the bags of chips he’d tossed around and put them back on the shelf. There was already enough damage that had been caused by the intruders, he didn’t want to be the cause of leaving more of a mess. He dropped a bag when he heard two officers approaching the doorway though, and had to leave it as they stepped inside.

“The call said there were four of them. We’re checking the premises to make sure no one’s still in there,” one of them radioed, the only thing Wirt caught before he teleported back to the corner of the Thai restaurant across the street.

There were two police cars on Grand, the lights flashing as the three men were escorted into them. The store clerk was out front, two customers with him, each giving their statement and each one unharmed despite the fact that the criminals had been armed. They’d been ready to hurt them.

“Dipper?” Wirt whispered, glancing around in the dark as he made himself visible once again. “Dipper!” The calm that had just started to settle within him crashed headlong into panic as he realized his best friend was nowhere in sight.

Eyes wide, he scanned his surroundings once again, then caught a glimpse of something in the shadows across the street. In the alley he’d gone down, near the dumpster where he’d hidden, Wirt thought he saw something move. Of course Dipper would charge ahead to help him as soon as the coast was clear. Taking a deep breath, Wirt teleported over to him, appearing as close to him as he dared, in case he was wrong and it wasn’t actually him. He knew that pine tree cap anywhere though.

Wirt closed his fingers around Dipper’s wrist, his sharp intake of breath soothed as he immediately recognized his presence, then teleported them both away from the crime scene and over to their bikes, completely out of sight. “I’m sorry,” Wirt apologized before Dipper could get a word in first. “I didn’t mean to go over there, it just- sort of happened.”

“You’re _sorry_?” Dipper’s voice cracked as his fingers curled in Wirt’s sweatshirt, clinging to him like he’d vanish into thin air, both realizing that was actually a real possibility. “What the heck were you thinking? Going off on your own without telling me!”

“I’m sorry,” Wirt repeated, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I’m really sorry, I- I just didn’t want anything bad to happen and I… I was there. And I stopped them, Dipper! I…” he trailed off, feeling the way his best friend tried not to tremble in his arms. “I’m sorry.”

“I was… I was really worried, Wirt,” he mumbled into his shoulder, hiding his face. His ball cap fell to the ground in his attempts to get closer. “You freaking scared the crap out of me.”

“I won’t do it again,” he promised. “From now on, if we ever do something like this again, I won’t teleport without telling you first. Or if I do, on accident, I’ll teleport back to you first and tell you what’s going on.”

Dipper sighed heavily, sagging against him as his racing heart began to settle. “No, you… your safety should be your first priority. And the safety of people actually in danger. Only do that if it’s safe. Or, you know, try not to accidentally teleport as much as you possibly can.”

“I’ll do my best.” Wirt smiled against his hair, breathing in the security and protection Dipper radiated. “Come on. Let’s go home and actually have our sleepover.”

“Okay, but you have to tell me everything. The whole story. What happened? How’d you chase them out of building before they did any damage?”

Wirt’s smile turned sheepish as he released Dipper to grab his bike, bracing himself for the barrage of questions and the play-by-play. “They, uh… they kind of thought I was a ghost?”

“Seriously?” Dipper grinned at him, picking up his hat with a laugh.

“Yeah, seriously,” Wirt laughed along with him, then realized something. “Except one of them got away. He drove off in the van, I think. Did you see him?”

Dipper flashed him a crooked smile as he held up his phone. A picture of the van had been zoomed in on, the license plate clearly visible. “I did indeed. And already tipped off the police. Anonymously, of course.”

Wirt beamed, delighted with him as they began the trek back to the Pines’ home. “I think we make a pretty good team.”

“Ouch. Wirt. You only _think_ we make a good team? We _are_ a good team.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry. How could I possibly insult our friendship with a word like think?”

“You might be able to make it up to me,” Dipper hummed.

“Please tell me. My heart quivers in abject horror as visions of a friendship once pure and sure as the sweetest sugar cane now rots and decays, leaving only cavities in my hollow soul where your affinity for me once filled.”

“Make me a plate of nachos when we get back and we’re even.”

Wirt sighed. “Could you be any less poetic,” he lamented as Dipper stuck his tongue out at him. “Fine. I’ll make you nachos.”

“Yes!”

“But I’m going to put olives on them.”

“Why would you torture me like this?”

—

On the news that morning, Dipper and Wirt were delighted to see a story on the incident that had occured at the Grand Lake Convenience Store. Four men were apprehended, three at the store and one who’d tried to make a quick escape while in the midst of a heist. Reports couldn’t conclude if it was gang related, but the police did inform the anchors of the interesting claims the received from the apprehended criminals.

When asked why they didn’t manage to get all the way into the store despite having plenty of time, one of the men simply replied, “The ghost wouldn’t let us.”

While the owner of the store and the clerk said that they’d never experienced any supernatural activity in their shop to their knowledge, the criminals were adamant that a spectral being stopped them before they could cause any lasting damage. Insurance would cover most of the costs associated with replacing the door, lock, and some of the inventory they’d lost, though that inventory did not include a bulk supply of Lays. While the criminals insisted that they’d been attacked with dozens of bags of chips, when the police went in to canvas the building, the chips were all neatly stacked on the shelf with only one bag out of place.

“If there really is a ‘Phantom of the Grand Lake Convenience Store,’ then he’s a very courteous and tidy phantom,” the news anchors teased.

Dipper nudged Wirt with his elbow, but other than that they only smiled around their spoonfuls of cereal. It didn’t make up for the man who’d lost his life thanks to Wirt’s hesitance to get involved, but it was a start. It was definitely a start.


End file.
